A way to filter spammers?

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#1

Most commercial spammers don’t bother with user names or personal details, just the usual alpha-numeric rubbish such as ‘qwerty123’ and location as ‘1’ etc.

If it was possible to set up something to identify such user names as suspect, the next step would be an auto-response requiring them to submit their first ten posts by PM to a mod PM address, which is accessible to any mod. Most spammers probably couldn’t be bothered.

If such a system picked up genuine new members then mods could let them post.

I don’t know if vBulletin can support that or if something else can do it, but it would get rid of about 95% of the remaining spammers coming through the improved filter.

#2

I know there is a function to prevent members from posting threads for a set amount of posts after registration. But we rarely get spammer threads anymore…

Frankly, I dunno why this spammer from China still bothers here, it seems like a waste of its bandwidth…

#3

I dunno why any of them bother.

The reward for effort must be below bugger all.

The only sense I can make of it is that they’re on some sort of piecework rate where they get paid by post, whether or not it’s a relevant forum.

#4

Hmmm… does that mean I’d be auto filtered as spam? That’s an almost supernatural level of accuracy :wink: